“It’s a huge responsibility”

Sabrina’s star is an old head on young shoulders

Sabrina’s popularity – and the outpouring of grief at the cancellation – has much to do with Kiernan Shipka. Like Sabrina, she’s whip-smart and emanates an easygoing confidence that belies her tender age: she turned 20 last year. (“I’m feeling old! A new decade of my life!”). But how did she gain such wisdom? Bet it was witchcraft…

“Growing up on a TV show really helped,” she says. Shipka of course played Don Draper’s daughter Sally on Mad Men from 2007-2015. “I watched Jon [Hamm] over the years do a really good job at being number one on the call sheet. He knew how to command the set and be a really amazing leader.”

After Mad Men, Shipka notched up a handful of killer supporting roles – she’s sharp as a tack as Bette Davis’s daughter in Feud: Bette And Joan – before landing Sabrina at the age of 18.

“I was like, ‘I’m supposed to be a freshman in college trying to figure out what to do with my life! And instead I’m doing this!’” she remembers. “And there’s nothing I’d rather do – but it is a huge responsibility.

“Once I got onto the set, everyone was so amazing, fun and collaborative, so I kind of forgot it was a big deal. And then I’m reminded. I know leading a show at my age is a crazy thing. It does hit me from time to time. But this is my normal. I haven’t really known much different. It just feels like the best job ever.”

“It’s a big thumbing my nose at all of the third-wheel scenes I had to do for two years!” laughs Watson.

Alas, Robin’s now dead. (Not that he’ll necessarily stay that way – as many Sabrina characters have proved). One new face definitely returning for part four is Sam Corlett’s Caliban, a Prince of Hell. Corlett, it emerges, has a secret double role: he serves as the on-set DJ, logging onto the Sabrina Wi-fi (imagine the password…) to play his “Inferno” music playlist. “INXS, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, a bit of Billie Eilish…” He turned to music’s most infamous hell-raisers to create his character, too. “I was going with Jim Morrison’s energy, a bit of Michael Hutchence from INXS. Then I was reading a lot about Hell. Dante’s Inferno inspired me. At the start, you don’t know where things are going to go, so you soak up any inspiration and see what comes out on the day.”

He needn’t have looked further than Michelle Gomez’s wickedly compelling Madam Satan, who’s grown increasingly complex. She’s currently pregnant with Lucifer’s child, and it’s arguably not the first time we’ve seen flashes of maternal instinct in the series.

“It’s so complicated – I don’t think we realised the dynamic between Madam Satan and Sabrina would become so warm,” says Gomez of Lilith’s archnemesis. “Which I was happy about. Mainly because I’d really rather not just be evil. Painting with one colour loses